46 replies to this topic

[Davegt27]

OP I did not know it at the time but when I started the Clans had just dropped into the game

and that butt ugly DW was a sight to see
it could go into the tunnel on Crimson and just clean some clocks

Quote

http://www.worldwide.../qa/qa-cle1.htm

anyway MWO also had pre-made teams that would kick your butt also (but you always seemed to learn something)

game seemed ok to me back then (even if I watched more then played lol) not sure what happened

[Davers]

Lol everyone complains about the MM now. Imagine if any of these ideas were implemented.

[Davison]

Mystere, on 25 August 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

"Penalize" is not the word I would use. Instead, Clan rewards should be "weighed heavily more towards solo kills and KMDD".

Sometimes, "presentation" does work.

Eh, point taken, but I also know it would never be used, much less in the original presentation. At this point, I doubt that book of a post even exists anymore. The TL;DR would be what was mentioned, plus a split currency system (Glory/C-Bills), and Binary vs. Company deployments as a basis.

[Davison]

El Bandito, on 25 August 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

And what happens when players who had already amassed hundred of millions of C-Bills don't given a damn about rewards and play un-Clanlike with clearly superior Clan mechs?

A very good observation. First, sorry for the double post, but my phone isn't behaving. To answer your question: In the original idea, C-bills were only used and earned by Inner Sphere pilots, with Clan pilots earning "Glory" instead. Similar to faction rep, save for being a currency, rather than an XP bar.

For faction play, that's all there needed to be to it. You earned one or the other. For quick play, you'd select your reward; either a lesser C-bill payout for using superior mechs, or a standard Glory allotment for same. But you'd also need said currency to buy Clan mechs and equipment under such a model. It boiled down to how you wanted to play, and what you wanted out of it at the end.

Thanks for engaging me on this. Always open to discussion on the matter.

Edited by Davison, 25 August 2016 - 01:53 PM.

[RAM]

AnTi90d, on 25 August 2016 - 09:19 AM, said:

That exists because, unlike all previous Battletech/Mechwarrior games.. PGI gave all the mechs insanely high heat caps. In BT, your heat cap is 30.. In MWO, most mechs run with 90+ heat caps. So, in BT.. if you have 20 double heat sinks.. you can't fire 3LPL and 4+ML unless you like frying your pilot like an egg.. In MWO, it's commonplace.

Everything you say here is completely false


RAM
ELH

[Chados]

The original post reminds me of an experience I had.

I played Kesmai's Multiplayer Online Battletech on the old GEnie network in the early 1990s. It was set in 3024 during the Third Succession War. I was DCMS, and we held to bushi-do on the servers. We knew that when the Head of House appeared in a drop lobby during an attack or defense, it was a very big deal. We called him "Tono," lord. We saluted each other in chat with "konnichi-wa," abbreviated "k-wa," when we'd enter a chat space where other Kuritans were. Our message board was governed the same way. We played in character.

Several years later I discovered a new version of MPBT, though it was only the Solaris portion. I only dropped once or twice. I would enter chat areas or drop lobbies and played it the same way, and essentially was told that no one did that. We were all there just to shoot at each other.

I've been in character in chat in MWO from time to time, and responses vary. Usually, it's ridicule but not always. Oddly, it almost always are dedicated Clan players that get it. When I was running in Marik, I recall one drop where I blasted a Clanner and got called a "stravag freebirth" in all-chat. I instantly responded "suck it, trashborn!" And the entire Clan company (I forget what Clanners call companies) got mad. They all came after me. All of them. Together. And ignored my unit mates in the process. We ended up winning, but they got all three mechs I had left and I got not one other kill that drop, LOL.

I've seen Clanners call out IS players and challenge zellbrigen in a CW drop. On one occasion, the other Clanner pilots where not in on the lore ignored the callout, and the Clanners that were turned on their own unit to avenge the dishonor. I did the same in that drop and unloaded my Marauder's PPCs into another pilot on my side who didn't respect the cease-fire and called him out in the all-chat. I'm Kurita. We get these things. I'm all for keeping it real, keeping it lore, and keeping it in character. If we did more of that it would be a better game.

[Tarl Cabot]

The biggest reasons for the differences? MWO is PGI's attempt to translate Battletech/Solaris (cooldown/etc) boardgames and the previous PC games to a PVP game. None of the previous PC games had the focus of PVP, they were all single player campaign games with multiplayer added on. Except for Mektek updates, the games as a whole had no major updates to make the game competitive in a FPS/PVP environment.

And not all aspects of the boardgames translates well into a FPS game, especially one with high customizations, which makes balancing things out difficult while attempting to keep the flavors different.

Atm the biggest fault, imho, is PGI not keeping with making Faction Warfare, aka Community Warfare, the centerpiece of the game, even after IGP left.

[Dino Banino]

I totally get the OP.

I never understood MWO players that always recycled the same lousy propaganda: "you can't use TT principles and apply them to a real-time shooter."

Yes you can! PGI is just incompetent.

[WANTED]

Yes. I come from the old school table top Battletech days and stopped once clans came into the game. Then all the Mechwarrior and console games had clan mechs and now the demographic is tilted to the clan side of things cause honestly it makes more business since, more players in that demographic than us old farts who prefer IS vs IS days. Like someone else said the new Harebrained Turn based game is closer to what you are looking for once it comes out. I watched a video of the alpha play and it actually got me excited again for Battletech. If they won't do 10vs12 then I say friggin use the quirk system in place and put structure buffs on most IS mechs and keep weapon quirks minimal. IS is old school tech and should show that but give them "tankiness". Clans are more finesse and high tech so they get better weapons and range. Tank class vs Range class. Balance this just like every other damn game out there! Even WWIIONLINE allows the Allies to catch up at some point in research and technology after Germans start out with some advantages. Why would IS warriors never strip weapons off a downed clan mech and repurpose at some point. I know that's not lore but this game isn't anymore either.

Edited by WANTED, 25 August 2016 - 07:41 PM.

[Kyrie]

Archangel Dino, on 25 August 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

I totally get the OP.

I never understood MWO players that always recycled the same lousy propaganda: "you can't use TT principles and apply them to a real-time shooter."

Yes you can! PGI is just incompetent.

The crowd that plays the game today is vastly different, IMHO, from the original founders group circa 2012. The time to have tried a hardcore TT based ruleset would have been right then, in closed beta or shortly after. I believe that PGI was not incompetent -- they wanted to create a mass-market robot shooter. Adopting more of the TT rules, such as heat-penalties, would have shifted the flavor of FPS combat quite far from the action-oriented to the complicated-tactical sim type of experience.
PGI can make a legitimate business case for the design decisions taken in alpha, CB and beyond trying to appeal to a broader market. What is unfortunate is that they did it off the hopes and dreams of the Founders for a real MPBT type game.

I recall a thread in the closed beta forum where PGI discussed the decisions taken along this line that haunt us to this day:
1) Vastly accelerated weapon recycle times so that there would be more action and less staring at screen waiting for something to happen
2) No TT heat penalties for same reason
3) Allowing perfect convergence AND perfect aim (emphasizing "skill", leading to the eventual confession by PGI of certain e-sport aspirations)

and many others.

From the very beginning PGI wanted to make something that was originally inspired by TT and its TROs, but geared towards the "Action" side of the action vs sim slider. I don't really blame them for this.

What I do blame them for is the profound apathy to the lore when creating CW, and failing to give us a strategic game to play taking inspiration from what actually worked back in 1992 and would have worked in 2001.

[Internal Obedience XIII-omega]

To the OP, i miss the good ol days playing table top BT... so much fun for me, sadly years ago i sold my entire Galaxy of mechs

[Dino Banino]

Kyrie, on 25 August 2016 - 07:44 PM, said:

The crowd that plays the game today is vastly different, IMHO, from the original founders group circa 2012. The time to have tried a hardcore TT based ruleset would have been right then, in closed beta or shortly after. I believe that PGI was not incompetent -- they wanted to create a mass-market robot shooter. Adopting more of the TT rules, such as heat-penalties, would have shifted the flavor of FPS combat quite far from the action-oriented to the complicated-tactical sim type of experience.
PGI can make a legitimate business case for the design decisions taken in alpha, CB and beyond trying to appeal to a broader market. What is unfortunate is that they did it off the hopes and dreams of the Founders for a real MPBT type game.

I recall a thread in the closed beta forum where PGI discussed the decisions taken along this line that haunt us to this day:
1) Vastly accelerated weapon recycle times so that there would be more action and less staring at screen waiting for something to happen
2) No TT heat penalties for same reason
3) Allowing perfect convergence AND perfect aim (emphasizing "skill", leading to the eventual confession by PGI of certain e-sport aspirations)

and many others.

From the very beginning PGI wanted to make something that was originally inspired by TT and its TROs, but geared towards the "Action" side of the action vs sim slider. I don't really blame them for this.

What I do blame them for is the profound apathy to the lore when creating CW, and failing to give us a strategic game to play taking inspiration from what actually worked back in 1992 and would have worked in 2001.

Quick recycle times are fine. Just keep them canon. Take Solaris VII cooldown times and divide them by 2. That would probably be the closest you'd get to MWO.

For the Heat Scale, once again, not introducing penalties was fine. But, the Heat Scale needs to be held to a max. of 30. If PGI kept it at 30, we wouldn't need Ghost Heat and now Energy Draw.

What really bugs me are weapon ranges. We can always take Extreme range from the Maximum Tech rulebook.

Implementing the above would not jeopardize your chances of having a doable e-sports game.

[Kyrie]

Archangel Dino, on 25 August 2016 - 07:58 PM, said:

Quick recycle times are fine. Just keep them canon. Take Solaris VII cooldown times and divide them by 2. That would probably be the closest you'd get to MWO.

For the Heat Scale, once again, not introducing penalties was fine. But, the Heat Scale needs to be held to a max. of 30. If PGI kept it at 30, we wouldn't need Ghost Heat and now Energy Draw.

What really bugs me are weapon ranges. We can always take Extreme range from the Maximum Tech rulebook.

Implementing the above would not jeopardize your chances of having a doable e-sports game.

Keeping the heat-scale at 30 would have ended up with a lot more dead-time in the action game as people would be unable to output as much damage, or any damage at all. The heat-scale had to go up to match the weapon recycle times... or we are back again to the original complaint that PGI had of "screen staring".

[Dracol]

Op, you already got the "I agree with your ire" responses, so I'll give you some of the other reasons they don't want to admit.

1st) PGI sought the IP not because of the lineage of Battletech, but the lineage of the Mechwarrior video game series. Past MW titles have more influence in PGI design principles than BTech.

2nd) When PGI was initially seeking a publisher to work with back when they were proposing MW5, the leading reason the IP was looked upon unfavorably was for the arms race nature. Prior MW games were based around just upgrading mechs until you were in the heaviest mech possiable. Making all weight classes viable stemmed from this.

3rd) The target mark for the franchise aged. No longer are teens/college kids with large amounts of free time the main revenue source. Adults with disposable income to spend on the franchise now have families and jobs, so hour long battles became less viable. Being able to open the client, find a match, and finish it in 15min lends itself better to us time restricted adults.

[Mystere]

Kyrie, on 25 August 2016 - 07:44 PM, said:

3) Allowing perfect convergence AND perfect aim (emphasizing "skill", leading to the eventual confession by PGI of certain e-sport aspirations)

Well apparently requiring players to aim individual weapons or weapon clusters was, and I quote, "nerfing skill!".

[Dreammirror]

Thanks for the replies! I'll look into the upcoming kickstarter turn based game soon. Lots of good feedback. If anyone sees me on the field of battle, call me out for an honor duel and I'll offer you a zellbrigen. "Fortitudem et honorem" -Gladiator.
-Dreammirror

[RAM]

Archangel Dino, on 25 August 2016 - 07:58 PM, said:

Quick recycle times are fine. Just keep them canon. Take Solaris VII cooldown times and divide them by 2. That would probably be the closest you'd get to MWO.

For the Heat Scale, once again, not introducing penalties was fine. But, the Heat Scale needs to be held to a max. of 30. If PGI kept it at 30, we wouldn't need Ghost Heat and now Energy Draw.

What really bugs me are weapon ranges. We can always take Extreme range from the Maximum Tech rulebook.

Implementing the above would not jeopardize your chances of having a doable e-sports game.

You are correct about Solaris recycle and Extreme range, but remain mistaken about max heat.


RAM
ELH

[topgun505]

I still play CBT on occasion. And I have a 30 lb box of unassembled mechs waiting to be built and painted. That comprises almost all of my bucket list. Lol

Elizavitka Wolf, on 25 August 2016 - 07:53 PM, said:

To the OP, i miss the good ol days playing table top BT... so much fun for me, sadly years ago i sold my entire Galaxy of mechs

[Signal27]

Believe it or not, there are actually other old school players of the tabletop game that didn't like the introduction of clan technology to the rules. Like me, for example. I would've been just fine with the lore of clan invasions, but to write up the rules as clan technology being objectively superior made for a lot bad games on the tabletop. So I'm actually glad that this version of a Mechwarrior title is trying to balance the two factions.

[Malagant]

Mystere, on 25 August 2016 - 11:34 AM, said:

I would roughly "simulate" this by giving the IS team-oriented sensors/data communications (similar to what we have now) and Clans more individualistic ones (e.g. faster sensors, more detailed target information, but no sharing). It will just require a bit of imagination and creativity on PGI's part, though.

Secondly, tailor the reward system for such.

This may have worked, had it been implemented in the beginning. However, most folks have been conditioned to behave a certain way on the maps available. All such changes would do now is further isolate and split the community leading to a mass exodus from the game. Sadly...